


Over the Water Cooler

by detective_meg_riley



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 15:41:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12368868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/detective_meg_riley/pseuds/detective_meg_riley
Summary: Kent has been hiding his feelings for Chandler for years. Unfortunately for him, his sister Erica is not so good at keeping secrets...





	Over the Water Cooler

“Does anyone honestly wish to disagree with me and say that Joe is capable of being a romantic relationship?” Kent glanced desperately around the room. “I honestly think Mansell has a better chance at happiness in that field than him.”  
Mansell stifled his laugh when he saw the DI enter the room.  
“Excuse me! This is an incident room, not a tea party. Now stop chit chatting like old ladies and get back to work!” admonished Chandler.  
A chorus of “yes, sir” was followed by a scuffling of shoes on linoleum tiles and shuffling of papers as everyone returned to their desks. Chandler surveyed the room sternly over his shoulder before entering his office. He removed his watch and arranged his desk items, then tried, without success, to focus on the paperwork on his desk, provided, as always, by Buchan’s very liberal ideas of what was relevant to the current case. He got up and opened his door.  
“Kent. My office, now.”  
Kent looked up worriedly from his desk. His brows furrowed, he swiftly got off his chair and made his way to the DI’s office. The eyes of the whole team followed him.  
“Sit.” said Chandler, as Kent entered the room.  
He sat.  
“So you think I am incapable of being in a romantic relationship?” Chandler enquired matter-of-factly.  
Kent hummed and hawed.  
“I already know your answer. I wanted to know your justification.”  
Kent looked at his shoes. “Well, it’s just that previous experience shows, well, um…”  
“Come on now, Emerson, I know you’re a perfectly capable detective. And from what it sounded like to me, you had quite a body of evidence, in fact, a body of evidence which the team was unanimously agreed upon, in favour of this theory of yours. So please, tell me.”  
“Well,” began Emerson uncomfortably, “you see, it’s a lot of different things. Romantic relationships require intimacy,” – Chandler opened his mouth, but Kent continued on hurriedly – “emotional intimacy. And for the longest time you wouldn’t even let Miles in, and he was your partner, saw you everyday, saw your meltdowns where you would colour co-ordinate all the pins in the office to maintain control of yourself.”  
Chandler’s expression made it evident that he was unaware that the whole office was aware of his habits. He made a mental note to talk to Miles about it later.  
During this pause, Chandler noticed Kent looking around the room as if searching for a way to escape.  
“Do go on, Constable.”  
“And well, there is the other kind of intimacy too.” At this Chandler looked offended.  
Kent went on, “Well, you know, all those bodily fluids, I just don’t think it seems like something you would…” Kent struggled to find an appropriate word here.  
“Enjoy,” he finished.  
“And moving in with someone, and all their knick knacks,” he continued hurriedly, eager to leave his last point. “What if they’re just not as neat as you? Even if they’re not a slob, what if they just can’t keep things as ordered as you need them to be?”  
“I see,” said Chandler. “Is that all?”  
“That’s all,” Kent said miserably.  
“Well, I must commend your detective work. Evidently you’ve been paying more attention than I thought. Perhaps the whole team has, I don’t know. But from now on I suggest you put all of this interest into your cases and not my personal life.”  
“Yes, sir,” Kent said, evidently to his shoes.  
“You’re dismissed. Continue with tracing the victim’s family.”

 

Chandler was more troubled by his conversation with Kent than he could admit. Of course, he had known, for much of his life, that he was disinclined to romantic relationships. At times he had put it down to his ambition; in a sense he was in a committed relationship, it’s just that it was with his career. After Morgan, he’d been forced to admit otherwise. He wasn’t sure, even though he desperately wanted to be in a relationship with her, if it would have worked – at all.  
But he pushed this from his mind and continued to plough through the files Ed had given him to read. No sooner had he finally begun to focus on the details of 16th century torture for murderers than Miles walked into his office and plonked himself one of the chairs in front of Chandler’s desk.  
“Just tell me you let Kent down easy.”  
Chandler looked at him, confused.  
“Actually, I would say it was him who let me down easy. Or, at least, as easy as was possible in the circumstances.”  
Miles looked at him, confused.  
“Oh. Okay. I didn’t realise… I mean…” he trailed off, not really wanting to broach the subject. “Well, I guess I’ll get back to my desk.”  
Chandler returned to his notes. Miles glanced at him over his shoulder as he left the DI’s office, still confused. 

 

Chandler did not normally join his team for their Friday after work drinks at the local pub. He did not generally frequent pubs at all, honestly. But there were no pressing cases to distract him at the office, and his conversation with Kent had continued to vex him throughout the week. Mansell had great faith that alcohol could save him from his own women problems, and Chandler had decided to test this theory.  
Kent’s sister Erica, whom Chandler found alarmingly similar to Kent (at least in looks) despite the fact that he knew they were twins, joined them – it seems this had been a thing since she and Mansell had started going out, much to Kent’s chagrin.  
“Kent not coming tonight?” Erica asked Mansell.  
“No, he’s avoiding the boss.”  
Chandler, who Mansell had thought was deep in conversation with Miles, glanced over at him and Erica.  
“Why is Kent avoiding me?” demanded Chandler. “He told me was still chasing up the victim’s sister.”  
“It’s just, you know… after his last conversation with you, he’s found it a bit… awkward.”  
“I see.”  
Miles, sensing the atmosphere of Friday night drinks approaching that of Monday morning incident room, interjected lightly, “Well, at least the feeling was mutual. I imagine it would have been much more award for poor Kent if you knew how he felt and just didn’t reciprocate.” The pint and a half had loosened his tongue somewhat – he had definitely never been this candid in front of the boss.  
Riley looked gobsmacked. “What?! Boss?! You never told us you liked Kent!”  
“What?” asked Chandler, bewildered. “What on earth is everyone talking about?”  
An uncomfortable silence followed.  
Miles ventured to break it: “When you said that it was Kent that let you down easy, what exactly did you mean, boss?”  
“He simply explained to me why he thought I could not be, you know, involved with anyone… romantically, that is,” exclaimed Chandler.  
“Hmm,” Miles racked his brain to find a quick segue to another topic, but he could feel the beer slowing him down.  
“What did you think I meant?” demanded Chandler forcefully, who had yet to touch the pinot noir he’d ordered.  
“Oh, um,” Miles hesitated.  
Chandler raised his eyebrows enquiringly.  
A burst of laughter came from Erica, at the other end of the table. “Are you serious?”  
She looked around at everyone at the table. “Does he not know?”  
“Jesus,” she snorted. “For a detective you really are thick.”  
“What do I not know?” Chandler just about yelled.  
“Oh for Christ’s sake, if no one else is going to tell him, I will,” said Erica. She turned to face Chandler directly. “My brother is in love with you.”  
Chandler fell back into his chair. His mouth opened and closed.  
“No,” he said. “No. You’re joking. You must be joking. Kent does not like me like that!”  
He looked around the table. Everyone stared at their drinks, or their shoes, or the wall, or really anywhere except the DI’s face.  
“Miles, this isn’t true, is it?”  
Miles looked uncomfortably at him. This was evidently not a conversation he had ever imagined himself having with his DI.  
“It’s true, boss.”  
Chandler put his head in his hands.  
“I can prove it,” said Erica, scratching in her purse for her phone. She pulled it out and began typing a text to a contact labelled Emmy, holding her phone in the middle of the table so that everyone could see what she was doing.  
Chandler reluctantly took his head out of his hands and began to watch what she was typing:  
Can’t believe your boss has finally joined us for drinks – turns out he does have a fun bone in his body!  
A few seconds later, she received a reply:  
The DI at drinks! Never thought I’d live to see that!  
“This doesn’t prove anything,” Chandler protested.  
“Wait, I’m getting there.” Erica typed another message:  
Get your butt over here – this might be your in ;)  
Chandler bent closer over the phone, anticipating the reply.  
My in for what? But I suppose I should come, if the whole team is there.  
“Look, he doesn’t know what you’re talking about!” cried Chandler. “The lot of you are just reading something into nothing – he’s just a dedicated constable – more dedicated than you lot, at any rate.”  
Erica rolled her eyes, and typed one last message:  
Just don’t forget to bleach your asshole – you know what the boss is like ;) ;)  
“No, no!” Chandler exclaimed in vain, “You can’t send that!”  
But it was too late.  
Erica grinned. “I’m his sister. I can send him what I like.”  
Chandler shook his head.  
Erica’s phone chimed, and everyone leaned in to see what it read:  
You are always such a BITCH.  
“See.” Erica proclaimed triumphantly. “No denial. No, ‘Erica, I do not want to shag my boss’. Not even a denial of the fact that he’s off to bleach his asshole.”  
“This still does not prove anything.” Chandler asserted. “The evidence is highly circumstantial.”  
No one was in the mood to take Chandler in an argument over this, and so the conversation drifted to other matters. 

 

And then Kent arrived. And the entire table stopped talking and stared at him.  
“I didn’t realise I was such a celebrity over here,” he quipped. “Well, go on, I’ve arrived, you can continue discussing whatever it was you were discussing five seconds ago.”  
The uncomfortable silence continued as the team scrambled for a conversation topic that was not related to Chandler, or Kent, or bleached assholes.  
Well, except for Erica.  
“So you had time to bleach your asshole?”  
Kent’s face turned beetroot. “What… what are you talking about?”  
His eyes darted around the table, trying to gauge how much everyone else knew about what Erica was talking about. He did not like what he saw.  
“Did you have time to bleach your asshole?” Erica repeated. She was not letting up. “We all know your boss has… issues…, so it would be in his interests to, you know, keep everything spotless.”  
Chandler put his head in his hands and wished he could just dissolve into his chair at this point. Or that a serial killer would walk in and shoot them all. That would be much, much less excruciating than this.  
Kent took a breath, trying to steady himself. He did not know if he wanted most to punch his sister or cry.  
“Oh for goodness sake, Emmy, you’ve been pining over him for years. If this is ever going to go anywhere, you’re going to have to tell him.”  
Emerson looked up at the ceiling, blinked away tears, then looked angrily at his sister.  
“Erica, can I talk with you alone please,” he said through gritted teeth.  
Erica rolled her eyes and pushed herself out of her chair. Emerson turned around and walked to a table that was out of his team’s earshot.  
As soon as Erica got there, Emerson let loose at her. He did not yell, but spoke forcefully and demandingly.  
“You have got to stop doing this Erica. First you outed me to Mum and now this? Are you trying to make me miserable?”  
“Emmy, how is this making your life miserable? I’m trying to make it better! Mum will understand – she would have understood, if you hadn’t told her that I was making a joke of things.”  
Emerson clenched his jaw.  
“It is not your place.” He spat each word out, turned on his heel, and stormed out of the pub. 

Meanwhile, at the other end of the pub, Chandler stared miserably into his wine glass.  
“I didn’t even know he was gay!” he grumbled. 

 

The next few days passed slowly, with agony.  
Kent avoided Chandler and Chandler avoided Kent, and there seemed to be no way to change how things were going.  
This troubled Chandler greatly. He always admonished Mansell and the others (but mostly Mansell) for bringing their personal problems to the office and here he was, in a very sticky situation with a colleague which impaired the functioning of his team and distracted him at work.  
“Kent,” Chandler called from his office door, “I need to speak with you.”  
And so Kent found himself in his supervisor’s office having another very uncomfortable discussion for the second time in the space of what was proving to be the very worst week of his life.  
“Kent,” Chandler began, “It has recently come to my attention that you… are... you have… you….”  
He realised he would have to bite the bullet sooner or later, and began again, this time with more determination.  
“I have been made aware of your… feelings… for me.”  
After a pause, Kent coughed. “I figured.”  
“And I think it would be best for the team if I were to transfer you to another station.”  
Kent looked up in alarm, his brows knitting together.  
“Or, at least another department of this station.”  
Kent nodded briefly.  
“Do you understand? I am not doing this to punish you, it’s just that… well, you see how things are going around here now. There’s no teamwork, no cooperation around here at the best of times, but I don’t think most of the team is on speaking terms at the moment because of…” Chandler did so wish he did not have to mention this again directly, “recent events.”  
“No, I see sir, it’s alright.”  
“Okay, then, I’ll make a request to my superiors and I’ll let you know when it’s approved.”  
Kent nodded silently and left the room.  
Later, he could be found crying in the toilets in the parking lot. 

 

Miles stormed into Chandler’s office.  
“You’re transferring Kent!” he yelled.  
“Miles!” Chandler scolded. “Keep your voice down. This isn’t the concern of the whole office. In fact, it isn’t even your concern.”  
“The hell it isn’t my concern! Kent has been here for ten years and you are going to send him away, to the other side of town, where he knows no one, and where no one will look out for him, because you feel a little bit uncomfortable.”  
Miles was furious, and it showed.  
“The… situation… was impairing our team work. How are we supposed to solve cases like this?”  
“How we always do! Kent’s been in love with you since you arrived and he’s always managed to get on with the job.”  
Chandler flinched at the words “in love”.  
“Look, I know this makes you uncomfortable, but it isn’t fair to Kent, and it isn’t fair to the team. It’ll blow over, just like it did when Mansell started dating Erica, and we thought he would never get over it, but he did. It takes time, is all.”  
Chandler inhaled deeply, then sighed.  
“Fine. I’ll keep him on. But you have to be the one to tell him. I want to minimise contact with him until this all blows over.”  
Miles snorted. “Boss, it’ll all blow over when you let it blow over.”


End file.
